Out of Balance
by crazywriter10
Summary: A heat wave leaves Bobby's powers on the fritz and some interesting results. Bobby/John if you squint real hard.


This is my first X-Men fanfiction..and the first fic I've published on so be kind, but honest. : Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it. :

While Bobby Drake would freely admit that he liked warm weather as well as anyone else, he didn't like the freakishly hot temperatures in the middle of May. It was supposed to be mild out, temperate and even, not a scorching 93 degrees. While heat like that early in the season bothered everybody, Bobby wasn't exactly like everyone else. Bobby's mutation was the manufacturing and control of ice, something that kept his natural body temperature at least ten degrees cooler than everybody else's.

So he sat in the back of his math class, ice rapidly melting on the back of his neck to mix with the sweat already running down his spine, struggling to keep his focus on what Scott was teaching. He wiped a hand over his eyes, drying it on his jean shorts and looked at the closed shades over the window. They did little to keep the room cool; Scott had already explained that the building wasn't used to such heat so early, and the air conditioning that was programed to come on at the beginning of June wasn't functioning properly.

And Bobby was really feeling the heat.

Beginning to feel nauseous, he put his arms on his open textbook and pillowed his head on them. Scott's voice was fading in and out of the background and he barely noticed when Kitty touched his shoulder. Taking shallow breaths because he honestly thought he was going to lose what little breakfast he'd eaten all over his book (which would cost him at least 90, no doubt) he looked up at her.

"Jeez, Bobby," she said, shrinking back. "You don't look good."

"I don't feel good," Bobby croaked. He took a few more deep breaths as the room swam, his body feeling overheated and out of whack. He could feel the darkness closing in on him, the rushing in his ears getting louder. "Kitty?"

She looked at him, almost afraid. "Yeah?"

"Can you get Mr. Summers? I think I'm going to pass out."

Kitty turned front, stood up and said very loudly, "Mr. Summers Bobby's going to pass out!"

Scott stopped mid-sentence and looked to the back of the room. Bobby was slumped over his desk, whiter than a piece of paper and very much passed out.

"Wrong, Pryde," Saint John Allerdyce said from the next row. "He's not _going_ to pass out, he's gone."

"Enough, Allerdyce," Scott said, threading his way through the desks to get to Bobby. He put a hand on the student's clammy neck and found a rapid pulse. "Piotr, would you come here?"

Piotr stood up and walked quickly back to Scott.

"I need you to carry him down to Medical," Scott said. He turned to the rest of the students, knowing he had to go with Bobby, and said, "Class dismissed, but read the rest of the section and do the homework. There might be a quiz tomorrow." There was some cheering from the class as they grabbed their belongings and headed out for a longer break in the warm weather. "Kitty, find Hank and tell him to come down to Medical." He watched Kitty sprint through the wall before looking down at Bobby's still form. He wasn't sweating anymore and that was never a good sign. "Let's go, Piotr."

Bobby floated near the surface, not quite touching it but close enough to hear garbled voices and feel something cold and welcome flowing into his arm. The last thing he remembered was feeling so hot and stuffy, like his body was trying to burn him from the inside out. Now he felt almost normal; still a little overheated but nothing like before.

"Bobby? Can you hear me?"

He tried to turn his head away from the voice and found he couldn't.

"Bobby. Open your eyes."

That was Scott's voice, imperious as ever and more than slightly demanding. It wasn't his classroom voice, it was his 'I'm leader of the X-Men, you'd better do what I say' voice and Bobby forced his eyes open a crack, wincing immediately at the bright lights in Medical.

"There we go. Just a little more."

Jean's voice filled his ears, gentle coaxing and Bobby blinked, opening his eyes a little wider until the figures around his bed came into focus. Scott was on his right, with the massive blue figure of Hank McCoy. On his left was the Professor and Ororo. Semi-confused, he stared at the four of them and blinked.

"What do you remember?" Jean asked gently.

"Hot," Bobby mumbled. "R'lly hot."

"That's right, Bobby," the Professor said. "Your body wasn't made to stand such hot temperatures and not even your powers could keep you cool enough. That is why you fainted in Scott's class."

Bobby didn't have enough energy to protest the use of the word "fainted" and nodded instead.

"Piotr and Scott brought you down here," Jean said, trying to help the obviously confused young man piece it together. "We packed you with coldpacks and gave you an IV of cold saline. That seems to be working, but your body temperature is still a little high, sitting at about ninety instead of eighty-six." She fiddled with something that he couldn't see and he felt an increased pressure and coolness in his arm. "You need to stay here tonight so we can monitor any changes. Why don't you try and sleep?"

Nodding tiredly (it seemed to be the only thing he could do) he closed his eyes on the four of them and drifted off. Jean looked at him, a slight frown on her face. Hank's look mirrored her.

"We're not sure what affect this is going to have on his powers," Hank said, looking at the Professor. "It could be nothing, or it could be something." He shrugged.

"We'll keep an eye on him," the Professor said knowingly.

The next morning Bobby's core temperature was hovering right around eighty-eight degrees and Jean saw fit for him to leave. She was grateful it was a Saturday since that meant he could go straight to his room and rest. Bobby put up a bit of a fight on that one, but Jean put her foot down and he acquiesced to her orders. He made his way back to his room slowly, leaning on the wall at times because he still felt a little woozy, something that both Jean and Hank had told him would fade the more rest he got.

He shuffled slowly past Piotr with a slight wave. Collasus was carrying a television under his arm, no doubt returning it to the rec room. Bobby was almost to the staircase when he both heard and felt the resounding crash that echoed through the Mansion. He turned as quickly as he could, ignoring the slight vertigo, and looked bewildered at Piotr on the floor, absently rubbing his backside.

"What did you do?" Bobby asked, looking for anything that Piotr might have tripped over.

"What did I do?" Piotr asked with a glare from the floor. "You mean you. What did you do!"

"Huh?" Confused, Bobby looked past Piotr and saw the trail of slick, icy footprints from Medical. He watched Piotr get up, wincing at the dent in the hardwood and then, leaning against the wall for support, lifted a shoe to look at the bottom. Sure enough there was ice on the sole. Looking up at Piotr, he said, sincerely, "I'm sorry. Really, I'm sorry."

Piotr glared at him for another second before sighing. "It's okay. I'm just bruised." He watched Bobby take another step toward the stairs. "Uh, but now that you know, why aren't you turning it off?"

Bobby looked back at another footprint and leaned more against the wall. "I tried." He stumbled to the stairs and sat down hard on the bottom step. "I think you need to go get somebody."

With one last look at how pale Bobby was, Piotr nodded in agreement and hurried off.

"So Bobby's powers are on the fritz?" Logan asked as he, Hank, Scott and Jean sat in the Professor's office. He was chewing on one of his trademark cigars, mildly interested in the fact that the heat seemed to be screwing with the Iceman's abilities to control his mutation.

"He left icy footprints all the way from Medical to the staircase," Scott said dryly, remembering how pale Bobby had looked sitting forlorn on the steps, a circle of ice beneath his feet from the fast tapping of his right leg. "What happens if his power does something that we can't control?"

Xavier steepled his fingers on his desk thoughtfully. "We'll continue to monitor him and watch for signs that it may be getting worse. At this point, I believe that's all we can do. I think his body just needs time to readjust itself."

Jean and Hank nodded wisely while Logan looked a little apprehensive. Only time would tell.

Bobby sat with his math book in the library, thumbing through the pages that'd he'd missed in class when he'd passed out and had his stay in Medical. It wasn't overly difficult, but it was something that he needed all his concentration for, and the itch on his right leg didn't want to go away. He scratched at it absently with a pencil, not taking his eyes off his work.

"How's the Icicle today?"

Startled, Bobby jumped, dropping his pencil on the floor. He looked up, glaring at the face of his grinning roommate and best friend, Saint John Allerdyce.

"Not bad," Bobby said, bending over for his pencil. Straightening up, he looked at John and asked, "Have you set anything on fire lately?"

John looked thoughtful at the question and shook his head. "Nah." He glanced at his watch. "Do you wanna go get some lunch?"

Bobby's stomach chose that moment to growl and he smirked. "The beast has spoken. Let's get some food." He stood up, slightly off balance and packed away his things. Slinging his backpack on his back, he stepped around the edge of the table and leaned heavily to the right with a clunking sound. He looked at John's raised eyebrows and barely hid laugh before looking at his own right leg which was encased in ice from mid-thigh to foot, completely around his sneaker.

"Don't. Say. A. Word." Bobby growled, limping past the other boy on his way to the door. People at other tables looked up and either openly stared or laughed.

"I didn't say a thing," John protested, jogging to catch up with the Iceman.

"Yeah, well, you were thinking it," he said, yanking open the door.

"So what if I was thinking you could make a great imitation pirate, at least I didn't say it."

Bobby growled again and stalked off toward the dining room.

Scott had just taken a seat next to Logan and Ororo when he heard the crowd go momentarily silent and then break into various giggles, snickers and laughs. Looking in the direction of the commotion, he found, as usual, John Allerdyce. But the fire mutant didn't seem to be the very center of attention. No, the middle of everything was, surprisingly, Bobby Drake. A few moments later Scott knew why when he saw the ice-encased limb that the young man was sporting.

"Did Hank not have enough plaster for the poor kid?" Logan asked and Ororo swatted him on the shoulder.

"Bobby's mutation must be acting up again," Scott said, watching with a slight smirk as the ice mutant tried to arrange his leg under the table. Amazingly, John helped him get situated. It must have been the fact that they were roommates because Scott couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Allerdyce be nice to anyone. "He left ice prints in the main hall."

"Is that what the dent was from," Logan said loftily.

"No," Scott grinned. "That was Piotr, who slipped on the ice prints and left the dent."

Logan chuckled at that one.


End file.
